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Apparently Michael Chertoff thinks that one of al Qaeda's goals is to "drive us crazy, into bankruptcy," and that as a reuslt, we should understand that it might just be too expensive to protect the nation.

Isn't that just a tad bit off message?

And while I'm asking questions, does he really believe that these super-masterminds, the one's we are told are a threat to civilization, are really this stupid?

For them to believe they could bankrupt a nation with a multi-trillion dollar economy, they would have to believe that our response would be to essentially turn our nation into a police state. They would have to believe that in response to the attacks on 9/11 we would become so terrified we would literally give up all of our freedoms - you know, the ones they hate us for, and the ones we are fighting to preserve - in exchange for total security. They would have to believe that we would honestly attempt to secure each and every target in a nation the size of a continent. They are supposed to be masterminds, and yet... I'm supposed to believe that their understanding of this nation is this simplistic and wrong?

But let's assume for a minute that Chertoff really believes this. Let's pretend it is even true. All of these assumptions would, in the end, rely on the belief that in the months and years after 9/11, we as a nation would remain in a state of total fear. For the bankruptcy dream to become a reality, we would have to remain terrorized for so long that our entire economy came totally unraveled, and that as it was happening, we would do nothing to change course. They would have to believe that we would, no matter what reality told us, hew to the same course until we brought on our own demise.

So... that being the case, wouldn't one of the best ways to foil this evil plot be to do everything possible to make sure the nation didn't remain in a state of constant fear? To tone down the rhetoric, rather than ratchet it up? To tell the nation that it is the fear created by terrorism as much as terrorism itself that is our enemy?

If Chertoff is right, isn't everything this adminsitration has done rhetorically over the past 5 years playing right into our enemy's hands?